This week Alex Rodriguez, retired Major League Baseball player and human steroid depository, made his debut in the broadcast booth. In typical A-Rod fashion, what should have been an easy home run became a bizarre scandal, with sharp-eyed viewers zooming in on his notebook only to see cryptic references to “birth control,” “baby”, and most-tantalizingly, “pull out stuff.” What all of this means, and why Rodriguez had this on his mind rather than a meaningless May baseball game, remains a mystery, but the other question we’re all wondering is, what else is in that notebook? The Center for Poor Karma & Pain’s crack researchers and spies are, as always, on the job and offer this exclusive look beyond the news.

p. 23 – “Where are my taco-flavoured kisses?”

p. 30 – “Find out: how many home runs wd potential baby have to hit to pass Griffeys for all-time father/son record?”

p. 37 – “A-Rod2 or 2Rod?”

p. 41 – “are purple lips hereditary or recessive?”

p. 43 – “move Phil Rizzutto to back of monument park? who is more beloved? hit more home runs than him after all”

After the New York Yankees beat the Los Angeles Angels to claim their 40th American League pennant, and with their 40th visit to the Fall Classic starting tomorrow, Major League Baseball is considering some changes to the storied competition to crown baseball’s best team.

Presented each year to the National League or American League team that wins the World Series, the Commissioner’s Cup has been won 26 times by the Yankees, by far more than any other team. This translates to one out of every four World Series wins going to the Yankees, although the team has faced a serious drought in recent years, not having been to the World Series since 2003, and not having won it since 2000, as Yankees captain Derek Jeter and every single broadcaster working today never tire of reminding us. In a move reminiscent of the Royal Yacht Squadron Cup being renamed the America’s Cup after its first winner, discussions are taking place to rename the Commissioner’s Cup the Yankees Cup.

Currently 162 regular season games plus two rounds of playoffs determine the teams that play each other in the World Series. Under proposed changes, if the team that wins the American League Championship Series doesn’t feature pinstripes as part of their uniform, they will be replaced by the New York Yankees.

Controversially, home-field advantage for the World Series is now decided in favour of the League whose team wins the All-Star Game in July. In the future, the advantage would go to whichever team lost its franchise player to the Yankees in the most recent free agent offseason, unless the Yankees are one of the teams, in which case they, of course, will receive home-field advantage.

The National Anthem will now be sung before each World Series game by whichever singer/actress/model/stripper Alex Rodriguez is currently dating. If the Toronto Blue Jays make it to the World Series, the Canadian National Anthem will be performed by former Yankee Bernie Williams on jazz guitar.

World Series games featuring the Yankess will be broadcast in prime time on all major networks, interrupting your regularly-scheduled programming. Games featuring any other team will be run on tape-delay after midnight on Fox, with a broadcast team of Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan, who will mostly talk about themselves.